Desert Rising (9 page)

She climbed to her feet, wincing at the bruises on her knees and hands and aware of the crowd of pilgrims parting around her, staring curiously.

“That horrible creature, rushing out of nowhere,” Greta said furiously. “He ought to be in chains.”

“I'm sure it was an accident,” Sulis said serenely, patting her pocket as though brushing off dust. It crinkled, indicating a letter inside. She smiled to herself.

“Those animals shouldn't even be permitted around the Temple,” Greta replied.

“Then how would they get inside to do all the dirty work? You'd have to clean the washroom yourself,” Sulis reminded her.

The woman pursed her lips. “I'm reporting this to Voras's altar,” she said stubbornly, and refused to speak to Sulis the rest of the walk.

That suited Sulis fine, and she parted with the woman in the entrance hall. She walked through the crowd in Parasu's altar without seeing faces and into the courtyard, looking for a private place to sit and read her letter. She was glad to see that she was early, and Jonas and Lasha had not yet arrived. A private bench sat off the main path by a bubbling fountain, and she sat on its cold marble with a sigh.

The letter crinkled when she pulled it out, and she realized it had been written on the back of paper a vendor would wrap food in. In fact, the charcoal pencil disappeared in a ­couple of grease spots. Kadar must have been in a hurry, Sulis thought as she began to read.

Su,

I wanted to speak to you, but you've got a ­couple of dogs on your tail in pink and red, so I had to write you a note. Uncle's keeping me busy learning the Illian rules of trade, hoping to keep me out of whatever trouble he thinks we're planning. The Temple told us you'd been paired, and Ashraf Nasirof came and yelled at us for letting you go. He's hired our caravans, and Uncle is pleased. A lot's at stake here, so keep your eyes open. Beware of a man named Severin. Need to meet soon. Can't fit everything on this silly sack.

Love and misses,

You know who

Sulis smiled to herself, wishing she had him here so she could throttle him for his childish trick on the road. She smiled even more when she realized that Ashraf had found her family, imagining the scene that must have played out with her uncles welcoming the rich businessman and Kadar and Ashraf suspiciously sniffing around each other, like roosters in an unfamiliar coop.

She frowned suddenly, rereading the first sentence. Pink and red? Although she knew Ivanha's acolytes were watching her, she hadn't noticed any of Voras's acolytes following her—­but Kadar would have had a better view than she did. What did Voras want of her? And who was Severin?

“What is that?” a voice startled her, and she quickly hid the letter in the folds of her robe. Jonas stared at her accusingly, with Lasha looking on behind him.

Sulis thought for a moment and decided to tell the truth. “A letter from my brother,” she admitted.

He frowned. “We aren't supposed to communicate with our families,” he told her.

Lasha rolled her eyes and punched him in the shoulder. “Don't be such a stuffed shirt, Jonas. We all do it.” She pushed past him and sat beside Sulis. She giggled. “My mom has my sisters bring me cinnamon cake sometimes though it's half-­gone before my sisters find me.”

“I'll bet Alannah doesn't communicate with her family,” Jonas protested, settling himself at their feet.

“Alannah needs to lighten up,” Lasha said with a sigh. “And her parents are just as stuffy as she is, so they'd never break the rule.”

“Have you known her long?” Sulis asked.

“Just all our lives. Her family's first-­circle, like mine.” At Sulis's baffled look, she explained further. “It's an Illian thing. The first circle has the big houses that are closest to the Temple. Usually, the richest or most important families live there. From there the roads circle out until the merchant district. The farther away you are from the Temple, the less important your family is. Circle children tend to play with those of their ranking, and Alannah was closest to me in age, so we grew up practically living at each other's houses.”

Sulis nodded, drinking this in. No doubt the hierarchy of Illian and how to navigate it was the same sort of thing Kadar was learning at the merchant hall from their uncle. No merchant could be successful without understanding who was in control and how the money flowed in a city.

“What circle are you?” she asked Jonas, who looked startled, then laughed.

“I'm not from Illian. My family lives by the coast, in Yamin. My father is a scribe and had a few too many sons, so he sent me to the great Temple to see if it could use a scribe. To his great surprise, I was paired.”

“That would make him about a second-­ or third-­circle here,” Lasha added, “although it is considered impolite to ask.”

Sulis smiled. “Only because all of you already know each other. If I don't ask, no one will ever tell me because the ranking of families here is something even your smallest child knows from birth.”

Jonas looked thoughtful. “I suppose that's true. What of desert clans? Do they have any ranking?”

Sulis could sense that this was important to the other two and chose her words carefully. “I would say no, we are above that—­but it would not be true. Wealth is as powerful in the desert as anywhere in the world because larger communities like Shpeth have to buy much of our food. Some families are honored more than others for our ability to commerce with Northerners, to bring back what the community needs for survival.” She looked at the other two and saw they were nodding but unsatisfied.

“The family of Hasifel would be considered the top clan in Shpeth,” she added. “We have caravans that travel to every part of the Northern Territory, and every major city, even in the South, has a standing Hasifel merchant hall.”

The other two seemed to relax, as though her ranking put them at ease. Sulis was amused that they were more comfortable with her dark skin and desert descent than they would have been if she were a pauper or farmer. She did not tell them that her best friends had been of the lowest class, daughters of the sand sifters. Sand sifters roamed the desert, sifting dried riverbeds for precious stones and metals, always looking for easy wealth. They measured their lives by luck, as the areas they scoured were far from oases and help if anything went wrong. Sulis also chose not to mention that being the wealthiest meant bearing the heavy burden of making certain all had food and shelter. Her aunt Janis and her grandmother stayed in Shpeth year-­round to govern and make certain all were taken care of.

“Have you been to any of those merchant halls?” Lasha asked.

“Oh yes, all of them,” Sulis told her. “I've been traveling the caravans bringing goods to the halls since I began my apprenticeship four years ago. My brother and I were training to take over when my father Aaron grew old and wanted to settle in Shpeth.”

“And you went sightseeing in Illian and bang! You were paired, and your destiny was changed forever,” Lasha said. “It's just like something out of a wonder tale.”

“Wonder tale?” Sulis asked, chagrined that Lasha seemed to see her story as something romantic.

“You know, a story such as ‘the noble heiress is on the way to marry her duke and the One speaks to her, changing her destiny forever'—­that sort of thing,” Lasha explained, confusing Sulis even more.

“They have stories about this sort of thing?” she asked, and the other two laughed.

Jonas said dryly, “I'm sure it is much more comfortable to be listening to the tale than to be living it.”

Lasha made a face at him. “I suppose. But she's traveled all over, and now she'll be taken by Aryn and still get to travel. I've never even been out of Illian, and I'll be stuck making babies for Ivanha and blessing marriages. I'd rather be uncomfortable and see the world than spend the rest of my life in an altar blessing babies.”

“Why?” Sulis asked, looking between the two. “Why do you think you will be stuck blessing babies? We don't know which deity will take us.”

“In theory, no,” Jonas said. “But usually a paired
feli
has a litter of one or two kits, and those kits tend to pair with ­people who become acolytes to the same deity as their dame. So you can usually predict which deity takes whom just by seeing what altar the person's
feli
came from. Lasha's and Alannah's
feli
came from Ivanha's altar and mine from Parasu, and that is where we will probably end up.”

“And you can sometimes tell what you'll be doing and where you'll be posted by what kind of
feli
you paired with,” Lasha added.

“Like Tori, being paired with a snow
feli
,” Jonas said
.
“She'll be picked by Parasu, but she'll be sent to a Northern temple.”

“Your
feli
came from Aryn,” Lasha added, “so Aryn has a special interest in you. And you'll probably be a messenger, since he has that slender build and long legs that can keep pace with the horses.”

“But what if I have no interest in Aryn?” Sulis asked.

Jonas shook his head, but Lasha giggled.

“You say the awfulest things,” she told Sulis. “What we want doesn't matter anymore. We've given ourselves to the Temple.”

“That seems wrong,” Sulis said slowly, working through her ideas out loud as she always had with Kadar. “It seems as though the One would look into your heart and want the best for you. How well can you serve her if you are unhappy at your place in the world?”

Jonas responded, “Maybe the One would, but he works through the deities, and they want what is best for themselves, as humans do.”

“That is why we in the desert don't bother with the deities,” Sulis said. She knew she should guard her tongue—­but there were no acolytes around to hear and somehow, in her heart, she knew she could trust these two.

Still, they stared at her with wide eyes, seeming too horrified to speak.

“Never say that where ­people can hear you,” Lasha said in a whisper. “Never.”

“It was humans' own selfishness that forced the One to create the deities,” Jonas told her. “The deities are both our punishment and our saviors. Without them, we can't heal our sick; we can't bless our babies. They give us good harvests and keep our cities and roads safe. They alone can give true justice and bring our hearts back to the One.”

“In the desert, we are keepers of our own hearts,” Sulis said stubbornly. “We heal our own sick and keep our borders safer than your deities do. Look at Trebue! The deities let criminals hurt ­people. We don't. We take care of each other, as the One meant for us to.”

“Which is why you have a burned-­out wasteland as a home,” Jonas shot back. “Our lands are fertile because we've changed our heretical ways.”

“Our desert is a reminder and a promise,” Sulis said heatedly. “It was burned by the battle between the One and the deities. It has beauty your forests will never equal and riches your deities long for with greed and pride. The deities don't wish to remember that the One stopped their greed, but the sand reminds them. They want to believe they are the only way to the One, but we defy them and live under the One's protection.”

“Stop it!” Lasha said desperately, looking around. “Or at least quiet down! Someone will hear you!”

Jonas closed his mouth on his reply, and he and Sulis glared at each other in pointed silence.

“But Sulis,” Lasha said in a soft voice, “you are paired now. You will be chosen by a deity. You have to learn respect for the deities.”

“Not necessarily,” Sulis said. “I might be taken by the One.”

Lasha shook her head. “That never happens,” she said. “The One picks from the experienced acolytes, not pledges.”

Jonas pursed his lips. “Almost never,” he corrected. “And not in the past century. There's only one Counselor of the One right now. When I was little there were four, but the One did not replace them as they passed on. They say he chooses more only in troubled times, when there's a need.”

“Well, then I will find the deity I most respect and pledge to him or her,” Sulis said.

“You can't. They pick you, not the other way around,” Lasha said.

“But we've been taking classes on focusing our minds and meditation. Wouldn't it be harder for a deity to take you if your mind was totally centered on a different deity?” Sulis asked.

Jonas looked to be seriously considering her question. “The acolytes told me you're told to empty your mind when you go into the ceremony, so the deities can enter it. But if you were focused on one specific one . . .” He trailed off, still thinking.

Lasha looked at them with something like hope, so Sulis added, “I think if you told your
feli
your dreams and hopes, she would probably help. I mean, the
feli
are our connection to the One, who wants the best for us. And they bolster our strength.”

Jonas nodded. “And I think exposure to the works of that deity, like sitting in on healings if you want to be with Aryn, might help. When I first sat in on judgments by Parasu's pledges, I didn't feel anything, but now that I'm pledged, I can sense something going on when the acolyte consults with Parasu. I know the feeling now, and I think I'd know Parasu's touch when I'm chosen.”

“You sit in on court cases?” Lasha exclaimed.

Jonas looked sheepish.

“They're more boring than sermons!” Lasha told Sulis.

“The process is just so fascinating,” Jonas defended himself.

It was obvious to Sulis that Jonas wasn't going to have to test his own theory. He was meant for Parasu. Lasha, however, had a determined look on her face.

“I'm going to do it,” she told the others. “I'm going to pay attention in those mind classes, and I'm going to volunteer with the healers. I'm going to bond with my
feli
.”